Storytime: Someone Stole my Pictures to Catfish Somebody

15:59:00

Blogging is unpredictable and that's one thing I love about it and one of the things I wish I never lose along the years. Whatever subject a blog focuses on, it keeps changing and it's important to keep up. As a fashion and beauty blog, I have to keep in touch with trends and always seeking the new and the latest. Not only that, being spontaneous is part of keeping blogging fun. All that to explain that today I had another completely different post planned but this morning, in bed, cuddled with my doggy, I started thinking. I don't remember where this started but somehow I ended up thinking about the one time, many years ago, when someone used me to catfish somebody on social media. So I thought "why don't I write a storytime post telling my readers about that experience?". So that's exactly what I'm doing and hopefully, this helps somebody who had their pictures used or someone who has been catfished (also happened to me, check my storytime video on my YouTube channel).

If you don't know what catfishing is, it's basically when someone pretends to be someone they're not on social media. Like, imagine me creating a social media profile with pictures of Ariana Grande saying my name is Katherine and that I live in Japan and have 10 children. That's basically it even though I exaggerated because I don't think anyone would believe that story but I hope you understood what I meant.

I don't know exactly how this came about because I only found out that I was being used to catfish people when this was already quite advanced. I was in the 6th grade and this guy from my class started mocking me for asking a friend of his if he wanted to be my boyfriend. At first, I thought he was joking and that he had made that stuff up but soon enough I started to find it extremely weird. I didn't know what catfishing was at the time and I didn't even have any form of social media so I was completely confused. At the end of the day, that guy from my class believed me when I said it hadn't been me but that didn't make me feel any better. His friend and his friends kept calling me out every time they saw me and I didn't have the guts to go up to them and tell them it wasn't me. I was scared they wouldn't believe me and that my actions would make it even worse. I was already being bullied at the time and I didn't need any more things to worry about. I tried to ignore it since I would be changing school in the year after that.

One day, in a class I can't remember the name of but it had to do with computers, a girl from my class showed me that she had taken pictures of every person in our class without some of us knowing. My immediate thought was that it had been her who had created that fake social media account and pretended to be me. I was uncertain of how I felt about her from then on. But a few days later, I found out another girl from my class had published pictures of every person in our class on her social media account. And guess who that girl was. That's right, my bully. I was almost 100% sure that it had been her creating that fake account just to bully me but the thing is, she had never mentioned that. In fact, the only person who knew about the catfishing thing was the first guy from my class I told you about. You would expect someone who hates me and bullies me to use whatever "I" had done to make fun of me, right? Over the years, so many of my "friends" ended up backstabbing me so still today I have to clue who could've done it. I'm even starting to doubt if that fake social media account even had pictures me on it. They could've simply said it was me without needing pictures and people would've believed in it. I never got to see that fake profile so I have no idea what it looked like.

I was sure the catfishing had stopped until something in my gut kept telling it wasn't over. A couple years after this someone came up to me and started talking to me as if he knew me. I thought maybe it was someone I had met but I couldn't remember him and I never forget a face so I was completely weirded out. Turns out he had been talking to me on facebook. Nothing weird about that except the fact that it wasn't me who he had been talking to. It had happened again but this time in a different social media.

A few months later, I was at a mall in the food section and I saw a group of guys staring at me and talking. I couldn't hear what they were saying but lucky (lol no) for me they got up and walked behind me and that's when I heard them and realised they had been catfished as well. That day, when I got home, I deleted my facebook profile and hoped that the news of me not having a facebook would spread and hopefully make whoever was doing this stop their fun because then no one would believe it was me.

Ever since then, I hadn't had any problems and no one has recognised me but that doesn't mean it's over. Those fake profiles might still be up and catfishing people and I really hope that having a blog helps with that because even though it's easier to access pictures of me, as I become more known, it becomes easier for people to realise they're not actually talking to me or it could also help that people who thought they were talking to me can now find me easily and we can sort all of this out. Or it might even make it worse, I don't know. But I really don't want to stop living my life and doing what I want just because someone out there has nothing to do with his/her life.

P.S.- Before anyone comments saying that it was all my fault for "posting my entire life on social media" just know that first, everyone does that nowadays and it's not anyone's fault that they get their pictures stolen besides the person who actually steals them; second, when it happened the first time I didn't even have social media; and third, when it happened the second time, my facebook was literally empty, I had always been extra careful on social media because of what had happened so the only picture they could've stolen was my profile picture.

About Me

Hi! My name is Marta and I'm 21 years old. After graduating from a fashion design course I decided to share my love for colourful fashion, cruelty-free beauty and life itself with the world. Here you will see a lot about pretty much everything.